Sunday, January 31, 2016

The colour party of the DR3 Meinicke Dragoons accept their new colours from the King of Prussia. Click or double click all pictures to enlarge the view.

I completed the second squadron of the DR3 Dragoons (Meinicke) in Prussian service, over the weekend and present them here for your review.

So I set them up in my photo booth for their first pictures and decided to create a vignette in which King Frederick II of Prussia presents the regiment with their colours for the very first time. I like this idea so much that I think that I will do it every time I add a new regiment of infantry and cavalry to the Prussian and Austrian armies. The information will then be recorded in my roster book for the army and include such information as:

Date of service
Brand of figures (usually Minden of course)
Inhaber
Combat record

A close up view of Frederick presenting the new colours to the Meinicke Dragoons.

The full regiment awaits your review. Click pix to enlarge the view.

And now here are some pictures of the first and second squadrons of the DR3 Dragoons:

First Squadron with King's Colour

Second Squadron with Regimental Colour

All figures are from Minden Miniatures and the colours are from GMB Designs, as usual for me.

Future Project: Rebasing the White Hussars

Here is a teaser of a little project that I am currently working on. I have a 20-figure regiment of White Hussars (RSM figures) and I need to build them up to 24-figures for my current game organization. I did not have any RSM figures on hand to fill out the unit, so I drafted two each of the Minden hussar officers and trumpeters to add to the unit. The sizes of the figures are comparable, so this should work. I intend to mix the Minden figures into stands with one RSM figure and one Minden figures, although this is not shown in the picture below.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

Fritz and Staff (Bevern in front and Schwerin behind) review the troops. Click all pix to enlarge the view.

Today, January 24th, is the anniversary birthday of Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia and to honor him, my Minden Prussian army turned out onto the marchfeld for the annual grand review of the troops. As is my tradition, I like to pull out my Prussian army from storage and present it on my table top for my annual grand review of the troops. I hope that you will enjoy the pictures. Be sure to click on all pix to enlarge the view.

The grand review begins with the infantry brigades.

Overhead view of the entire parade ground.

Take a closer view of the grand review by clicking or double clicking on all of the pictures below. Feel free to leave any comments in the Comments Section.

Frederick inspects the Guards Brigade.

Prinz Moritz of Anhalt Dessau passes his brigade in review.

Winterfeld's Brigade awaits its turn to be reviewed by the King.

This overhead photo of Winterfeld's Brigade gives the reader a good idea of how I organize my infantry brigades. Each brigade consists of two regiments, each with two battalions, one brigade ammunition wagon, and one 3-pound regimental cannon for each 60-figure infantry regiment. Each regiment has its own inhaber (Mounted colonel). Finally, the brigade commander is shown on the 2-inch diameter round base.

The King compliments von Winterfeld for the turn out of his brigade. IR5 Alt Braunschweig regiment of the brigade stands behind the VIPs.

IR1 von Winterfeld regiment is the senior regiment of the army and the first unit of Minden figures that I painted back in 2010.

Satisfied with the overall appearance and smartness of the infantry brigades, the King now rides to the other side of the marchfeld to inspect the cavalry. Most of my cavalry regiments are in two "squadrons" of 12 figures. Twelve figures at 1:20 is actually closer to three squadrons, but for gaming purposes, I use 12 figures in a game squadron.

General de Cavalrie, von Seydlitz, gets his cuirassiers ready and positioned for their turn in the review.

The famed Bayreuth Dragoons are a brigade in and of themselves because it is a 10-squadron regiment. Four squadrons are pictured with the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp in front.

In the upper right corner, you can see the first squadron of the newly-painted DR3 Meinicke Dragoon Regiment. (The stands have not been grassed and tufted yet).

A squadron of RSM dragoons positions itself behind the Black Hussars to pad out the Hussar Brigade until I can paint more hussars.

Von Seydlitz never fails to present his cavalry up to snuff and the King is satisfied with the look of his cavalry brigades. Now he moves on to the outskirts of the encampment where Colonel Moller has the artillery brigade ready for review.

Major Moller (with flag) readys his battery of 12-pounders. The Garde du Corps cavalry regiment stand guard in front of the Prussian encampment. After the parade, the King and his staff will retire to the Gasthaus Der Alter Fritz for a celebration.

While the army is turned out for the grand review, the work never ends behind the scenes. The Commissary Staff is busy getting the bread baked for the daily rations in the field bakery, shown below.

Meanwhile, the Commissary is busy baking the bread for the army.

Across the way, the blacksmith's shop and mobil field forge are busy keeping the horses shod. In the background, an artillery crew hoist the barrel of a 12-pounder off its carriage, using a gyn. The gun carriage is in need of some repairs, possibly some ironwork that will be made in the field forge area.

There is always work to do at the field forge and blacksmith's shed.

We have a lot more of the encampment to show over the next several days. So stop in frequently this week and see more pictures of the town and camp as they are posted on this blog.

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Here is a picture of one of the new Minden SYW personality figures that was added to the range recently, as a result of one of our Kickstarter campaigns. One of the subscribers pledged at a level that allowed him to choose to have any figure of his choice to be sculpted and added to the range. In this particular case, the choice was to sculpt a very heroic looking von Ziethen personality figure. Our new von Browne, Fermor and Prinz Moritz personality figures were also generated from the Kickstarter program.

As you can see from the pictures, there are a number of inspirations for the Minden Ziethen personality figure, which comes with its own special rearing horse that is unique to this model.

The figure is a joy to paint and makes an attractive addition to your Minden Prussian cavalry contingent. The stock code number is "PER-011" and the figure is priced at $8.00 for the rider and horse, plus applicable shipping

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

I am particularly pleased with the way the musician's horse turned out. The flag is from GMB Designs.

With the 3-day holiday weekend, I was able to put together enough painting time to knock out a 12-figure squadron of the DR3 Dragoon Regiment in the Prussian army of the Seven Years War. I have another 12 figures to paint before completing the regiment and I hope to do that over the course of the next week.

I decided that my Prussian cavalry contingent was heavily weighted towards cuirassiers, having 3.5 regiments of those and one regiment of Bayreuth Dragoons (which I count as two regiments because it is twice the size of a normal Prussian cavalry regiment at 10 squadrons rather than 5.

The Meinicke Dragoon Regiment is one of those units that probably finds a place in every Prussian wargame army. It has the unique Rose colored facings (cuffs, lapels and collars) and horse furniture that make it a very colorful addition to the otherwise drab looking Prussian dragoon uniforms.

Once the final 12 figures are painted, I will consider my Prussian heavy cavalry arm more or less completed, although I will need to add more hussars in the future. This new addition gives me plenty of cavalry to game Reichenberg, Prague and Kolin in the 1757 Campaign, which I will feature in my convention games at this year's SYWA convention in South Bend, IN at the end of March this year.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

SYW Russian Brigade, so far. Click or double click to enlarge the view.

This evening I completed the last six figures for my third battalion of Russian infantry for the Seven Years War. I used the new Savoy infantry figures that are part of the Crann Tara Miniatures figure range. A little bit of "conversion by painting" is used to make them Russians rather than Savoia figures. Click on the link below to visit the Crann Tara home page and shopping cart.

Close up view of the newest Russian battalion to the brigade. Click to enlarge.

For terraining the bases, I used fine railroad ballast, medium brown in color, for the ground color. Then I dry brushed the ballast with Howard Hues Geo Hex Tan paint. Next, I added a few Winter Tufts and added some scorched grass static grass. Here and there I added a dark green or a brown Highland tuft to add some contrast to the stand.

Here are some closer views of the Russian artillery section that is part of the brigade. On the left is a 6-pounder and on the right is a Shuvalov Secret Howitzer. My understanding is that both pieces were commonly used as regimental or battalion guns with a regiment of infantry.

A closer view of the artillery, loading pose set on the left and firing pose set on the right.

The civilian set of figures carrying a wooden box are painted in Russian red and create a vignette of men carrying ammunition to the cannons. Front Rank artillery wagon in the background, although Fife & Drum recently added Russian ammo wagons to the lineup. Minden French officer acting as a mounted Russian artillery officer.

So far, I have three battalions of infantry and some cannon in my SYW Russian army. The grenadiers are from RSM, the marching Russian musketeers are Minden French with turn backs, and the At the Ready posed figures are Crann Tara Savoy figures. The artillery crew are Minden/F&D recent additions in mid 2015. My plan is to add Russian infantry to the Minden range later this year, but I wanted to get a head start on my Russian army by recruiting other brands of figures that fit in well with the Minden sculpting style of Richard Ansell.

Saturday, January 9, 2016

I recently received and based a regiment of Minden Hungarian Musketeers, painted by Alex Akers, to add to my collection for the Kolin game at this year's SYWA Convention on March 31, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana.

Combined with the Josef Esterhazy regiment that I already have, I now have an official "Hungarian Brigade of two regiments = four battalions. In my set up, each regiment gets one 3-pounder regimental or battalion gun model. I like all of the new cannon models that Rob Baker made for Fife & Drum, but to my way of thinking, his Austrian 3-pounder is the most elegant of all the cannon in the range. One interetesting thing to note, the Austrians were way ahead of everyone else in that they standardized the wheels of all of their artillery - every cannon used the same wheels. There is also a standard smaller wheel that was used for limbers and for the front wheels of the four wheel ammo wagon.

Austrian 3-pound regimental cannon from Fife & Drum Miniatures

I haven't had time to paint all of the Austrians and Prussians that I need for the game, so I recruited Alex to help me with the Austrians while I concentrated on the Prussians.

I also put together a temporary photo booth so that I can have a better looking background for my pictures. An old blue towel or a faded sheet of blue paper doesn't really do the job anymore. The long view, below, depicts the photo booth. Compare it to the picture at the top of this post.

Long view of the photo booth that I set up to create better back grounds for my pictures.

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Here are pictures of the ANZACs (12 pointed) and what I believe are Germans (4 painted). The Lot for Sale also includes some unpainted Anzacs (machine gun crew of 3 figures) and 10 more in various charging, advancing and firing poses. I'm not sure, but I think that the figures are Woodbine Designs. The entire lot is $95 plus applicable postage and fees. First come, first serve.

I think that I took some fairly good pictures of the figures, front and back, but I have to say that these are some of the best looking painted figures that I have seen and that my photography does them no justice. I think that this lot is a real bargain.

Anzacs advancing (click picture to enlarge)

Rear view of the previous picture.

Another grouping advancing. I really like the blue shirts and the contrast that they have with the khaki. I wish that I could paint khaki like this.

Rear view of the previous picture.

I am pretty certain that these are Germans from WW2

Rear view of the Germans

As before, if you are interested in any of the figures painted by Alex, then send me an e-mail at

altefritz1740@yahoo.com

If I were a collector of the period, I would keep these for myself.

The Perry Napoleonics are still available. I aplogize for the poor pictures of the Perrys. I tried to clean up and lighten the pictures that were sent to me, but as with the Anzacs, the pictures do them no justice as they are very nicely painted and based.

Finally, I also have some 40mm British Napoleonic Peninsula figures. I'm not sure of the brand, but they are impressive looking figures - these are unpainted. Make me an offer, or I might paint them myself.

Next up, some pictures of two battalions of Minden Hungarian Musketeers that were recently added to my army. I will post pictures of the Hungarians by Saturday.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

French 28mm Napoleonics For Sale
I am posting some pictures of two French Napoleonic battalions, 24 figures each, of Perry plastic figures that are up for sale. The figures were painted by Alexander Akers and I am posting them for sale on my blog for Alex since we seem to get a fairly large amount of page hits on this blog. Alex is asking $5.00 per figure so the full set of 48 figures comes to $240.00 plus applicable postage.

Alex is a really good painter and has a few Golden Demon awards as evidence of his prowess. Better yet, I can personally vouch for his painting skills as I use Alex to paint some of my own Minden figures to bulk up my Austrian forces.

The figures are well painted and they are attractively based and terrained to give them a nice finished appearance. At $5.00 per figure, this is really good value as I would personally sell them for significantly more if they were mine.

Take a closer look by clicking on each picture to see the well detailed Perry plastics and Alex's nice brushwork and basing. If you are interested, then send me an e-mail at: altefritz1740@yahoo.com and I can hook you up with Alex to make the final arrangements.

Close up of the command stand

Rear view of the Grenadier base.

Grenadier (left) and Voltigeur (right) stands.

Close up view of the Voltigeur base.

Next Item For Sale - WW1 Anzacs for Gallipoli

Alex also sent me some 28mm Anzacs in Gallipoli kit for sale. I will post pictures tomorrow. There are 13 painted and singley based figures and maybe another dozen unpainted. I think that they might be Woodbine Design figures. There are also five figures that look like Deutsch Africa Korps 28mm single figures painted. All of them are painted to a very high standard and are perfect for a small skirmish game force or an Indiana Jones style game in the Middle East.